Sex tapes are alleged to have been taken of Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Sir Richard Branson by Jeffrey Epstein, court documents have revealed.
Sarah Ransome, who says she was a victim of Epstein, wrote in emails to a reporter in 2016 outlining claims the Duke of York, the ex-US president and the billionaire businessman were filmed having sex with her unnamed friend on separate occasions by the paedophile US financier.
A firm representing Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, highlighted the allegations to demonstrate Ms Ransome “manifestly lacks credibility”.
The claims were included in hundreds of documents that a US judge has ordered to be unsealed as part of a civil claim by Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, which was filed in 2015 and settled in 2017.
Despite the defamation case being concluded seven years ago, the Miami Herald successfully fought to make the names and documents associated with it public.
Image: Sarah Ransome arrives for the sentencing of Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in June 2022
Andrew has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
Ms Ransome gave a victim impact statement ahead of Epstein’s former girlfriend and long-time associate Maxwell being sentenced for sex trafficking in 2022.
A New Yorker article, released in 2019, reported Ms Ransome admitted “she had invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein’s behaviour, and to make him believe that she had ‘evidence that would come out if he harmed me'”.
On behalf of Sir Richard Branson, a Virgin Group spokeswoman said: “In a New Yorker report published in 2019, Ransome admitted that she had ‘invented’ the tapes. We can confirm that Sarah Ransome’s claims are baseless and unfounded.”
Mr Clinton’s representatives have not commented after being approached by Sky News.
Among the 2016 documents, Ms Ransome wrote in emails: “When my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson, sex tapes were in fact filmed on each separate occasion by Jeffrey.
“Thank God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which clearly identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual intercourse with her.
“Frustratingly enough Epstein was not seen in any of the footage but he was clever like that!
“When my friend eventually had the courage to speak out and went to the police in 2008 to report what had happened, nothing was done and she was utterly humiliated by the police department where she went to report what had happened with Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew.”
Image: Former US president Bill Clinton
Ms Ransome also alleged in the email extracts that former US president Donald Trump had sexual relations with “many girls”.
“I also know she [a friend of Ms Ransome] had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffrey’s NY mansion on regular occasions,” the alleged Epstein victim wrote.
Ms Ransome was involved in the Giuffre defamation case against Maxwell as a witness and she provided photographs showing Epstein, Maxwell, herself and other young women on Epstein’s private island, Little St James, in the US Virgin Islands.
Image: Young women on Little St James island in 2006. Court pic
Image: Sarah Ransome on the island in 2006. Court pic
Some of the images from 2006 have now been made public after the documents were unsealed on Monday.
Image: Jeffrey Epstein on the island in 2006. Court pic
Image: Ghislaine Maxwell on the island in 2006. Court pic
The duke stepped down from public life and no longer uses his HRH title after the controversy over his friendship with Epstein.
The prince paid millions of pounds to settle a civil case with Ms Giuffre, who accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. He claimed he never met Ms Giuffre.
Image: Prince Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell, pictured in a photo believed to have been taken in 2001. Pic: Rex/Shutterstock
She alleged Andrew sexually attacked her in a bath in Maxwell’s London home. But newly unsealed legal documents claim the bath was “too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in let alone sex”.
Maxwell’s solicitor Philip Barden said in his 2017 deposition, unsealed on Monday: “She [Ms Giuffre] claimed she did have sex with Prince Andrew and that the sex occurred in what can only be described as a very small bathtub, too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in let alone sex.”
In New York in June 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, in what a judge called a “horrific scheme” that inflicted “incalculable” harm on victims.
Maxwell has been detained since July 2020 despite attempts by her defence lawyers to get her released on bail. Her appeal is scheduled to be heard in November.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.
It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.
Image: Pic: Reuters
The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.
MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”
The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:20
‘Many more deaths unless Israelis allow food in’
In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.
The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.
In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.
The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:10
Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.
Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.
Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.
The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.
Israel has said foreign countries can drop aid into Gaza from today.
A senior IDF official told Sky News on Friday: “Starting today, Israel will allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza.
“Starting this afternoon, the WCK organisation began reactivating its kitchens.”
Humanitarian aid organisation World Central Kitchen paused its operation in Gaza in November after a number of its workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike last year.
Aid workers in Gaza – who help provide food, medicine and shelter for the millions displaced there – have been affected by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
In recent weeks hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food and aid.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
More from World
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive Breaking News alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News App. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:49
Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Image: Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
5:33
‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:42
Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:54
Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Image: Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
Follow The World
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.